Obama votes early in Chicago

10/25/12 5:26 PM EDT

Like his campaign is urging millions of others to do, Obama voted early Thursday afternoon at the Martin Luther King Community Center in his old neighborhood on this city's South Side.

He was then asked to produce photo identification — a requirement for early voting in Illinois. The president produced his red Illinois drivers license from his wallet, a poll worker wearing a black sparkly hat inspected it -- much to Obama's amusement -- and he turned to the waiting electronic voting machines.

After the press corps was warned not to ask him any questions -- "You can't be interviewing voters of any kind," a Chicago Board of Elections official said. "Those are the ground rules, period." -- Obama approached a table of four poll workers and announced he was here to vote early.

After six minutes at the machine, Obama announced, "I voted."

"For all of you who have not yet early voted, I just want you to see what an incredibly efficient process this is," he added.

There was some confusion about whether Obama was legally allowed to shake hands and take photographs with other voters and elections workers, but he decided it was.